Part 166

"At the first prospect of invasion from Holland [by William of Orange], James had ordered the regiments on duty in Scotland to march southward. The withdrawal of the troops was followed by outbreaks in various parts. In Glasgow the Covenanters rose, and proclaimed the Prince of Orange king. In Edinburgh riots broke out. The chapel of Holyrood Palace was dismantled, and the Romish bishops and priests fled in fear for their lives. On hearing that William had entered into London, the leading Whigs, under the Duke of Hamilton, repaired thither, and had an interview with him. He invited them to meet in Convention. This they accordingly did, and on January 9, 1689, it was resolved to request William to summon a meeting of the Scottish Estates for the 14th of March, and in the interim to administer the government. To this William consented. The Estates of Scotland met on the appointed day. All the bishops, and a great number of the peers were adherents of James. After a stormy debate, the Duke of Hamilton was elected President. But the minority (Jacobites) was a large one. … The Duke of Gordon still held Edinburgh Castle for James, and when the minority found it hopeless to carry their measures, he proposed they should with him withdraw from Edinburgh and hold a rival Convention at Stirling. But these intentions were discovered, many Jacobites were arrested, and many others, amongst them Viscount Dundee, escaped to the Highlands. In the end, the crown was offered to William and Mary on the same terms on which it had been offered by the English Convention. The offer was accompanied by a claim of rights, almost identical with the English declaration, but containing the additional clause, that 'prelacy was a great and insupportable grievance.' On April 11, 1689, William and Mary were solemnly proclaimed at the Cross of Edinburgh. It was high time some form of government should be settled, for, throughout the Lowlands, scenes of mob violence were daily witnessed. The Presbyterians, so long down-trodden, rose in many a parish. The Episcopal clergy were ejected, in some cases with bloodshed. The 'rabbling,' as it is called in Scotch history, continued for some months, until the Presbyterian Church was reinstated by law as the Established Church of Scotland, in June 1690."

_E. Hale, The Fall of the Stuarts, chapter 13._

"Episcopacy was now thrown down; but Presbytery was yet to be built up. … Months passed away, and the year 1690 began. King William was quite prepared to establish Presbytery, but he was most unwilling to abolish patronage. Moreover, he was desirous that the foundations of the new Church should be as widely laid as possible, and that it should comprehend all the ministers of the old Church who chose to conform to its discipline. But he began to see that some concession was necessary, if a Church was to be built up at all. On the 25th of April the Parliament met which was to give us the Establishment which we still enjoy. Its first act was to abolish the Act 1669, which asserted the king's supremacy over all persons and in all causes. Its second act was to restore all the Presbyterian ministers who had been ejected from their livings for not complying with Prelacy. This done, the parliament paused in its full career of ecclesiastical legislation, and abolished the Lords of the Articles, who for so many centuries had managed the whole business of the Scotch Estates, and ordained that the electors of commissioners to the Estates should take the Oath of Allegiance before exercising the franchise. The next act forms the foundation of our present Establishment. It ratifies the 'Westminster Confession of Faith'; it revives the Act 1592; it repeals all the laws in favour of Episcopacy; it legalizes the ejections of the western rabble; it declares that the government of the Church was to be vested in the ministers who were outed for nonconformity, on and after the 1st January 1661, and were now restored, and those who had been or should be admitted by them; it appoints the General Assembly to meet; and empowers it to nominate visitors to purge out all insufficient, negligent, scandalous, and erroneous ministers, by due course of ecclesiastical process. In this act the Presbyterians gained all that they could desire, as Presbytery was established, and the government of the Church was placed entirely in their hands. By this act, the Westminster Confession became the creed of the Church, and is recorded at length in the minutes of the parliament. But the Catechisms and the 'Directory of Worship' are not found by its side. A pamphleteer of the day declares that the Confession was read amid much yawning and weariness, and, by the time it was finished, the Estates grew restive, and would hear no more. It is at least certain that the Catechisms and Directory are not once mentioned, though the Presbyterian ministers were very anxious that they should. From this it would appear that, while the State has fixed the Church's faith, it has not fixed the Church's worship. … The Covenants were utterly ignored, though there were many in the Church who would have wished them revived."

_J. Cunningham, Church History of Scotland, volume 2, chapter 7._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1689 July). War in the Highlands. The Battle of Killiecrankie.

"The duke of Gordon still held out the castle of Edinburgh for James; and the viscount Dundee [Graham of Claverhouse], the soul of the Jacobite party in Scotland, having collected a small but gallant army of Highlanders, threatened with subjection the whole northern part of the kingdom. Dundee, who had publicly disavowed the authority of the Scottish convention, had been declared an outlaw by that assembly; and general Mackay was sent against him with a body of regular troops. The castle of Blair being occupied by the adherents of James, Mackay resolved to attempt its reduction. The viscount, apprised of the design of his antagonist, summoned up all his enterprising spirit, and by forced marches arrived at Athol before him. He was soon [July 27, 1689] informed that Mackay's vanguard had cleared the pass of Killicranky; a narrow defile, formed by the steep sides of the Grampian hills, and a dark, rapid, and deep river. Though chagrined at this intelligence he was not disconcerted. He despatched Sir Alexander Maclean to attack the enemy's advanced party while he himself should approach with the main body of the Highlanders. But before Maclean had proceeded a mile, Dundee received information that Mackay had marched through the pass with his whole army. He commanded Maclean to halt, and boldly advanced with his faithful band, determined to give battle to the enemy." Mackay's army, consisting of four thousand five hundred foot, and two troops of horse, was formed in eight battalions, and ready for action when Dundee came in view. His own brave but undisciplined followers, of all ranks and conditions, did not exceed 3,300 men. "These he instantly ranged in hostile array. {2875} They stood inactive for several hours in sight of the enemy, on the steep side of a hill, which faced the narrow plain where Mackay had formed his line, neither party choosing to change its ground. But the signal for battle was no sooner given, than the Highlanders rushed down the hill in deep columns; and having discharged their muskets with effect, they had recourse to the broadsword, their proper weapon, with which they furiously attacked the enemy. Mackay's left wing was instantly broken, and driven from the field with great slaughter by the Macleans, who formed the right of Dundee's army. The Macdonalds, who composed his left, were not equally successful: Colonel Hasting's regiment of English foot repelled their most vigorous efforts, and obliged them to retreat. But Maclean and Cameron, at the head of part of their respective clans, suddenly assailed this gallant regiment in flank, and put it to the rout. Two thousand of Mackay's army were slain; and his artillery, baggage, ammunition, provisions, and even king William's Dutch standard, fell into the hands of the Highlanders. But their joy, like a smile upon the cheek of death, delusive and insincere, was of short duration. Dundee was mortally wounded by a musket shot as he was pursuing the fugitives; he expired soon after his victory, and with him perished the hopes of James in Scotland. The castle of Edinburgh had already surrendered to the convention; and the Highlanders, discouraged by the loss of a leader whom they loved and almost adored, gradually dispersed themselves, and returned to their savage mountains, to bewail him in their songs. His memory is still dear to them; he is considered as the last of their heroes; and his name, even to this day, is seldom mentioned among them without a sigh or a tear."

_W. Russell, History of Modern Europe, part 2, letter 17 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _J. Browne, History of the Highlands, volume 2, chapters 6-7._

_M. Morris, Claverhouse, chapter 11._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1689 (August). Cameronian victory at Dunkeld.

After the victory and death of Dundee at Killiecrankie, the command of his Highlanders had devolved upon Cannon, an Irish officer. "With an army increased to 4,000 men, he continued to coast along the Grampians, followed by Mackay; the one afraid to descend from the mountains, and the other to quit, with his cavalry, the advantage of the open plains. Returning by a secret march to Dunkeld [August 21], he surrounded the regiment of Cameronians, whose destruction appeared so inevitable that they were abandoned by a party of horse to their fate. But the Cameronians, notwithstanding the loss of Cleland, their gallant commander, defended themselves … with such desperate enthusiasm that the highlanders, discouraged by the repulse, and incapable of persevering fortitude, dispersed and returned to their homes."

_M. Laing, History of Scotland, 1603-1707, book 10 (volume 4)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1692. The Massacre of Glenco.

A scheme, originating with Lord Breadalbane, for the pacifying of the Highlanders, was approved by King William and acted upon, in 1691. It offered a free pardon and a sum of money to all the chiefs who would take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary before the first of January, 1692, and it contemplated the extirpation of such clans as refused. "The last man to submit to government was Macdonald of Glenco. Towards the end of December he applied to the governor of Fort William, who refused, as not being a civil magistrate, to administer the oaths; but dispatched him in haste, with an earnest recommendation to the Sheriff of Argyle. From the snows and other interruptions which he met with on the road, the day prescribed for submission had elapsed, before he reached Inverary, the county town. The benefit of the indemnity was strictly forfeited; the sheriff was moved, however, by his tears and entreaties, to receive his oath of allegiance, and to certify the unavoidable cause of his delay. But his oath was industriously suppressed, by the advice particularly of Stair the president; the certificate was erased from the list presented to the privy council; and it appears that an extensive combination was formed for his destruction. The earl of Breadalbane, whose lands he had plundered, and … Dalrymple, the secretary, … persuaded William that Glenco was the chief obstacle to the pacification of the highlands. Perhaps they concealed the circumstance that he had applied within due time for the oaths to government, and had received them since. But they procured instructions, signed, and for their greater security, countersigned by the king himself, to proceed to military execution against such rebels as had rejected the indemnity, and had refused to submit on assurance of their lives. As these instructions were found insufficient, they obtained an additional order, signed, and also countersigned, by the king, 'that if Glenco and his clan could well be separated from the rest, it would be a proper vindication of public justice to extirpate that sect of thieves.' But the directions given by Dalrymple far exceeded even the king's instructions. … Glenco, assured of an indemnity, had remained at home, unmolested for a month, when a detachment arrived from Fort William, under Campbell of Glenlyon, whose niece was married to one of his sons. The soldiers were received on assurance of peace and friendship; and were quartered among the inhabitants of the sequestered vale. Their commander enjoyed for a fortnight the daily hospitality of his nephew's table. They had passed the evening at cards together, and the officers were to dine with his father next day. Their orders arrived that night, to attack their defenceless hosts while asleep at midnight, and not to suffer a man, under the age of seventy, to escape their swords. From some suspicious circumstances the sons were impressed with a sudden apprehension of danger, and discovered their approach; but before they could alarm their father, the massacre spread through the whole vale. Before the break of day, a party, entering as friends, shot Glenco as he rose from his bed. His wife was stript naked by the soldiers, who tore the rings with their teeth from her fingers; and she expired next morning with horror and grief. Nine men were bound and deliberately shot at Glenlyon's quarters; his landlord was shot by his orders, and a young boy, who clung to his knees for protection, was stabbed to death. At another part of the vale the inhabitants were shot while sitting around their fire; women perished with their children in their arms; an old man of eighty was put to the sword; another, who escaped to a house for concealment, was burnt alive. {2876} Thirty-eight persons were thus inhumanly massacred by their inmates and guests. The rest, alarmed by the report of musquetry, escaped to the hills, and were preserved from destruction by a tempest that added to the horrors of the night. … The carnage was succeeded by rapine and desolation. The cattle were driven off or destroyed. The houses, to fulfil Dalrymple's instructions, were burnt to the ground; and the women and children, stript naked, were left to explore their way to some remote and friendly habitation, or to perish in the snows. The outcry against the massacre of Glenco was not confined to Scotland; but, by the industry of the Jacobites, it resounded with every aggravation through Europe. Whether the inhuman rigour or the perfidious execution of the orders were considered, each part of the bloody transaction discovered a deliberate, treacherous, and an impolitic cruelty, from which the king himself was not altogether exempt. Instead of the terror which it was meant to inspire, the horror and universal execration which it excited rendered the highlanders irreconcilable to his government, and the government justly odious to his subjects."

_M. Laing, History of Scotland, 1603-1707, book 10 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN: _Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 18 (volume 4)._

_J. Browne, History of the Highlands, volume 2, chapter 10._

_G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 5 (volume 4), 1692._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1695-1699. The Darien scheme. King William urges a Union of the kingdoms.

"The peace of Ryswic was succeeded by an event which had well nigh created a civil war between Scotland and England. As the writers of no nation are more marked by grandeur and meanness of composition in the same person, and the actors in public life by grandeur and meanness of character in the same person, than those of England; so the proceedings of the national assembly of England, the noblest that ever was on earth, except that of Rome, are often tinctured with a strange mixture of the great and the little. Of this truth an instance appeared at this time, in the proceedings of parliament with regard to the Scots colony of Darien, settled by Mr. Paterson. … Paterson, having examined the places, satisfied himself that on the isthmus of Darien there was a tract of country running across from the Atlantic to the South Sea, which the Spaniards had never possessed, and inhabited by a people continually at war with them; … that the two seas were connected by a ridge of hills, which, by their height, created a temperate climate; … that roads could be made with ease along the ridge, by which mules, and even carriages, might pass from the one sea to the other in the space of a day, and that consequently this passage seemed to be pointed out by the finger of nature, as a common centre, to connect together the trade and intercourse of the universe. … By this obscure Scotsman a project was formed to settle, on this neglected spot, a great and powerful colony, not as other colonies have for the most part been settled, by chance, and unprotected by the country from whence they went, but by system, upon foresight, and to receive the ample protection of those governments to whom he was to offer his project. And certainly no greater idea has been formed since the time of Columbus. … Paterson's original intention was to offer his project to England, as the country which had the most interest in it." Receiving no encouragement, however, in London, nor in Holland, nor Germany, to which countries he repaired, he returned finally to Scotland, and there awakened the interest of several influential gentlemen, including Mr. Fletcher of Salton, the Marquis of Tweddale, Lord Stair, and others. "These persons, in June 1695, procured a statute from parliament, and afterwards a charter from the crown in terms of it, for creating a trading company to Africa and the new world, with power to plant colonies and build forts, with consent of the inhabitants, in places not possessed by other European nations. Paterson, now finding the ground firm under him, … threw his project boldly upon the public, and opened a subscription for a company. The frenzy of the Scots nation to sign the solemn league and covenant never exceeded the rapidity with which they ran to subscribe to the Darien company. The nobility, the gentry, the merchants, the people, the royal burghs, without the exception of one, most of the other public bodies, subscribed. Young women threw their little fortunes into the stock, widows sold their jointures to get the command of money for the same purpose. Almost in an instant £400,000 were subscribed in Scotland, although it be now known that there was not at that time above £800,000 of cash in the kingdom. … The English subscribed £300,000, and the Dutch and Hamburghers £200,000 more. … In the mean time, the jealousy of trade, which has done more mischief to the trade of England than all other causes put together, created an alarm in England; and the houses of lords and commons, without previous inquiry or reflection, on the 13th December of the year 1695, concurred in a joint address to the King against the establishment of the Darien company, as detrimental to the interest of the East India company. Soon after, the commons impeached some of their own countrymen for being instrumental in erecting the company. … The King's answer was 'that he had been ill-advised in Scotland.' He soon after changed his Scottish ministers, and sent orders to his resident at Hamburgh to present a memorial to the senate, in which he disowned the company, and warned them against all connections with it. … The Scots, not discouraged, were rather animated by this oppression; for they converted it into a proof of the envy of the English, and of their consciousness of the great advantages which were to flow to Scotland from the colony. The company proceeded to build six ships in Holland, from 36 to 60 guns, and they engaged 1,200 men for the colony; among whom were younger sons of many of the noble and most ancient families of Scotland, and sixty officers who had been disbanded at the peace." The first colony sailed from Leith, July 26, 1698, and arrived safely at Darien in two months. They "fixed their station at Acta, calling it New St. Andrew, … and the country itself New Caledonia. … The first public act of the colony was to publish a declaration of freedom of trade and religion to all nations. This luminous idea originated with Paterson. {2877} But the Dutch East India company having pressed the King, in concurrence with his English subjects, to prevent the settlement of Darien, orders had been sent from England to the governors of the West Indian and American colonies, to issue proclamations against giving assistance, or even to hold correspondence with the colony; and these were more or less harshly expressed, according to the tempers of the different governors. The Scots, trusting to far different treatment, and to the supplies which they expected from those colonies, had not brought provisions enough with them; they fell into diseases, from bad food, and from want of food. … They lingered eight months, awaiting, but in vain, for assistance from Scotland, and almost all of them either died out or quitted the settlement. Paterson, who had been the first that entered the ship at Leith, was the last who went on board at Darien." To complete the destruction of the undertaking, the Spanish government, which had not moved in opposition before, now bestirred itself against the Scottish company, and entered formal complaints at London (May 3, 1699). "The Scots, ignorant of the misfortunes of their colony, but provoked at this memorial [of Spain], sent out another colony soon after of 1,300 men, to support an establishment which was now no more." This last colony, after gallant fighting and great suffering, was expelled from Darien by a Spanish expedition, and "not more than thirty, saved from war, shipwreck, or disease, ever saw their own country again. … While the second colony of the Scots were exposing themselves, far from their country, in the cause, mediately or immediately, of all who spoke the English language, the house of lords of England were a second time addressing the King at home against the settlement itself. … He answered the address of the lords, on the 12th of February 1699, in the following words: 'His Majesty does apprehend that difficulties may too often arise, with respect to the different interests of trade between his two kingdoms, unless some way he found out to unite them more nearly and completely; and therefore his Majesty takes this opportunity of putting the house of peers in mind of what he recommended to his parliament soon after his accession to the throne, that they would consider of an union between the two kingdoms.'"

_Sir J. Dalrymple, Memorials of Great Britain, part 3, book 6 (volume 3)._